Washington, DC—The U.S. Department of Commerce today made preliminary affirmative determinations in its antidumping duty investigations involving certain lined paper products from China and India, and imposed antidumping duty margins ranging from 52.10 to 258.2% on China and 22.53 to 110.43% on India. The determinations are in response to petitions filed by the Association of American School Paper Suppliers in September 2005.

As a result, the Commerce Department will suspend liquidation of all entries of certain lined paper product imports from China and India, and will require importers to provide a cash deposit or post a bond for such entries in the amount of the antidumping margins. The determinations primarily cover lined paper school supplies, such as notebooks, filler paper, and composition books. The Commerce Department also found a surge of imports amounting to “critical circumstances” in a number of instances, which may result in imposing the duties retroactively to mid-January 2006.

The Department has already imposed antidumping margins of 97.85% to 118.63% on imports from Indonesia, countervailing duty margins of 33.31 percent on all imports from Indonesia, and countervailing duty margins of 2.2% to 7.2% on all imports from India.

“The substantial duties found confirm widespread dumping of these products,” said Alan H. Price, counsel to the Association of American School Paper Suppliers. “Dumping and subsidization of these products by India, Indonesia and China have harmed American producers and their workers.”

The Commerce Department will now proceed to final investigations of the margins of dumping and the subsidy programs in existence. The Department is scheduled to reach final determinations in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations beginning early this summer. The International Trade Commission will then determine whether the domestic industry is materially injured or threatened with injury by reasons of dumped and subsidized imports.